E

From “salting the earth” so “the enemy” could no longer grow food and were starved;

To the mustard gas of WWI that tormented survivors and the soil;

To the Agents Orange, Green and Blue which killed more Americans since the Vietnam war “ended” and continue to kill and poison countless Vietnamese and poison the soil so poor farmers cannot survive;

To the Depleted Uranium shells of the war on Iraq whose deadly work will continue for millennia.

When will we rid the Earth of the Waste of War?

Roger Ehrlich
Raleigh, N.C.

(written in the vigil tent of Swords to Plowshares Memorial Belltower)

In May 1968 I was “asked” to join the military after getting into trouble (possession of CANNABIS) while @ Beaverton H.S. (class of 1969). I was naive and completely ignorant as I joined the Marines to go to Vietnam and get a medal. I only wanted one. While in boot camp (MCRD San Diego) my Platoon 1001 was composed of volunteers and about seven or eight draftees. It was those educated persons that exposed me to reality with information I never knew.

But for fill in; while in boot camp I learned it was a United Nations action we were in thus WE are the Unwilling, Led by the Unqualified, to do the Unnecessary, For the Ungrateful.
I already had been aware of SIR WE HAVE MET THE ENEMY AND THEY IS US.

One man’s soldier is another man’s terrorist was new to me.

Another line I recall was the question of WHAT is the difference between the Boy Scouts of America and the United States Marine Corps? The answer being Boy Scouts have adult leadership.
Ultimately I was a F**k up as I was discharged administratively for LSD in June 1969. I had turned eighteen two months prior. When I got home, I was classified 4-F after I had passed those G.E.D. tests for my certificate of Equivalency to my classmates. My 1970 lottery draft number was 297. DD215 upgrade was in June 1972. I was mentally down for a long time before I finally accepted it was what it is.

In 2002, I began receiving Medical care and in 2009 I received a Non Service Connected disability pension and I am doing a lot better mentally. Reading has really helped too. William Broyles Jr., Karl Marlantes, et al. I felt I was right when I saw Robert McNamara said WE were WRONG terribly WRONG in 1995, and I still study the Pentagon Papers knowing those what-ifs. While the National Defense Service Medal is only a firewatch ribbon for most it is still worthy of respect. I believe when you make your enemy human again, PTSD is inevitable.

Survivors’ guilt: When you walk past the War Memorial the names you see, some you may recognize, but you know damn well your name was supposed to be there too. For Veterans every day is Memorial Day. Independence and Veterans Days comes only once a year.

I should add the fact that while home on leave in October ’68, I wrote a letter to the Commandant of the Marine Corps (breaking the chain of command) stating my newly formed opinion that I did not support the war in Vietnam but would go if sent. Upon arrival at next duty station the First Sergeant was on me like flies on feces as the expression goes and it only went downhill from there until I took the trip that made the NCO In Charge and Officer of The Day to call in the Office of Naval Intelligence who charged me as a communist conspirator and possible White Viet Cong infiltrator!

While awaiting discharge I was assigned personnel section where I noticed the morning report was always incomplete and also my service number was incorrect within our records and I wanted to correct that which lead to time in the air conditioned computer room using BOOLEAN LOGIC to fix the errors in our records leading to a complete and accurate morning report and a promotion with a medal of Commendation for Efficiency for my NCO. He tried to give me credit but was deflected by the officer presenting the citation. It was his signature for the Master IBM card file and time use in the computer room. This time frame is as HAMBURGER HILL was raging 11,000 miles away. My guilt has always been that was where I was supposed to be too. But for LSD.

Semper Fidelis,
Wesley Ellis

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Toward an honest commemoration of the American War in Vietnam

Mission statement

The Full Disclosure campaign is a Veterans For Peace effort to speak truth to power and keep alive the antiwar perspective on the American war in Viet Nam — which is now approaching a series of 50th anniversary events. It represents a clear alternative to the Pentagon’s current efforts to sanitize and mythologize the Vietnam war and to thereby legitimize further unnecessary and destructive wars.

On Burns/Novick PBS Documentary

Philip Jones Griffiths’ Viet Nam

This Month in History: 1969

May 20,000+ Selective Service records are burned in Chicago and Pasadena, while at post offices and federal buildings around the country, the names of the war dead are recited.

May 6 Fort Dix – Edwin Arnett, the first GI to be tried for desertion from Vietnam to a foreign country, is sentenced to four years at hard labor.

May 8 The NLF puts forth its 10-point position at the Paris negotiations calling for (1) respecting Vietnam’s independence, unity, and territorial integrity as recognized by the 1954 Geneva Agreements, (2) total US withdrawal, (4 & 5) establishment of a provisional, coalition government, (6 & 8) a neutralist foreign policy, (7) the DMZ as only a provisional boundary, (9) mutual release of POWs and the US bearing full responsibility for the devastation of Vietnam, and (10) international supervision of the withdrawal of foreign troops and war material. This remained the consistent position of the NLF — and then its replacement Provisional Revolutionary Government (PRG); see June 8, 1969 entry — throughout the Paris negotiations. This position may be compared to the actual Peace Accords of January 27, 1973 (see https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Paris_Peace_Accords).

May9 The New York Times (in an article by military reporter William M. Beecher) breaks the news of the secret bombing of Cambodia. As a result, Nixon orders FBI wiretaps on the telephones of four journalists, along with 13 government officials to determine the source of news leak. Beecher claimed that an unnamed source within the administration had provided the information. Nixon was furious when he hears the news and orders Kissinger to obtain the assistance of Federal Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover and discover the source of the leak. Hoover suspected Kissinger’s own NSC aide, Morton Halperin, of the deed and so informed Kissinger. Halperin’s phone was then illegally tapped for 21 months. This was the first in a series of illegal surveillance activities authorized by Nixon in the name of national security.

May 10-May 20 Forty-six men of the 101st Airborne as part of Operation Apache Snow (May 10- June 7) die during a fierce ten-day battle at ‘Hamburger Hill’ in the A Shau Valley near Hue. 400 others are wounded. After the hill is taken, the troops are then ordered to abandon it by their commander. The NVA (PAVN or VPA) then moves in and takes back the hill unopposed.

The costly assault, and its confused aftermath, provokes a political outcry back in the U.S. that American lives are being wasted in Vietnam. The debate over Hamburger Hill reaches the US Congress, with severe criticism of military leadership by Senators Edward Kennedy, George McGovern, and Stephen M. Young. In its June 27 issue, Life Magazine publishes the photographs of 241 Americans killed in one week in Vietnam; a watershed event in turning public opinion against the war. While only five of the 241 photos were of those killed in the battle, many Americans thought that all of the photos were casualties of the battle. It is the beginning of the end for America in Vietnam as Washington now orders MACV Commander Gen. Creighton Abrams to avoid such encounters in the future. General Abrams discontinues the policy of “maximum pressure” against the PAVN to one of “protective reaction” for troops threatened with combat action. ‘Hamburger Hill’ is the last major search and destroy mission by U.S. troops during the war. Small unit actions will now be used instead. Following the bloody battle, soldiers offer a $10,000 reward in an underground newspaper for fragging the officers in charge.

May 14 During his first TV speech, President Nixon presents an 8-Point peace plan in which America and North Vietnam would simultaneously pull out of South Vietnam over the next year. The offer is rejected by Hanoi, as it viewed all Vietnamese forces as legitimate participants in the conflict (Point 3 of their May 8 Ten-Point plan) and not as outside interlopers.

May 15 Daily support of the Presidio swells to 5,000 as GIs, vets, and civilians protest sentencing of the Presidio 27. See entry for February 14.

May 20 Army announces it is dropping charges against the Fort Jackson 8. See entry for March 21.

May 22 Canadian government announces that immigration officials would not and could not ask about immigration applicants’ military status if they showed up at the border seeking permanent residence in Canada.

Pentagon drafts Guidance on Dissent as a guideline in the handling of “dissenters.” The letter gives instructions to commanders on how to handle many facets of dissent ranging from possession and distribution of political materials, Servicemen’s Unions, and demonstrations to the publication of “Underground” newspapers.

May 24 GIs and Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) organize an antiwar picnic in Riverside, California.

May 25 A group that came to be known as the Chicago 15 burn draft records in Southside Chicago.

2016 National Book Award Finalist, Viet Thanh Nguyen:

“All wars are fought twice, the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory . . . . Memory is haunted, not just by ghostly others but by the horrors we have done, seen, and condoned, or by the unspeakable things from which we have profited.”